The Powerball jackpot has climbed to a record level after going unclaimed since the November 29th drawing. Iowa Lottery spokesperson, Mary Neubauer, says there’s added attention to this jackpot for another reason.  She says it’s been almost one year since the jackpot was this high as there seemed to be a winner every few weeks. The jackpot rolls over when there’s no ticket with the winning numbers.

“It’s at an estimated 450 million dollars annuity, that’s a little more than 304 million dollars with the cash option,” Neubauer says. “That is the third-largest jackpot in the history of the Powerball game and it is the fifth largest jackpot ever in North America.” She says with the increased attention and sales, there’s a good possibility the jackpot could be raised before Wednesday night’s drawing. Neubauer going a long time without a record jackpot is what they look for in the Powerball game.

“Really that’s good for players, because the only way the jackpot gets as high as it is right now is if it rolls a number of times without being won,” Neubauer says. “Well over the last year the jackpot was being won more frequently, so it stayed at a quote, unquote lower level, even though that was still into the hundreds of millions of dollars.” She says you won’t increase your odds of winning by spending larger sums of money on the big jackpot. “The message that we emphasize all the time is to remember that this is just for fun. Play responsibly, have fun with it, but don’t get in over your head,” Neubauer says.

It’s common for people to put together office pools to buy tickets, and Neubauer says you should take a few steps to protect everyone if that’s what you do. “Keep the rules for your pool in writing. Keep a very detailed list of who has put in money and who hasn’t, that way there won’t be any disagreement later about who was in or who was out,” Neubauer says. ” And then also, another great idea is to make copies of the tickets and provide copies to everyone in the group before the drawing occurs, that way there’s no question about which tickets were for the group.”

The next Powerball drawing is at 9:59 p.m. on Wednesday, and in Iowa you can buy a ticket up until 8:59 p-m on that day. You can find out more about the drawing on the Iowa Lottery’s website.

(Radio Iowa)